Deathstalker 07 - Deathstalker Return

and threaten to listen to see if it was loaded. I hadn't realized how soft, how limited I'd become. And how bored… I mean, at least part of why I agreed to becomeDouglas 's Queen was that I had nowhere else to go in my profession, except down. The trouble with achieving all your ambitions is, what do you do for an encore?
    To tell the truth and shame the Devil, sweetie, I'd been coasting for years. Taking on roles and shows I knew weren't worthy of me, just to keep my face in front of the public. But now… I'd forgotten how good it feels, to be faced by challenges and overcome them. So, I'm glad we did this together, love. I feel so alive with you. More alive than I've felt in years."
    "Does that mean you won't be moaning and complaining anymore?" Lewis said solemnly.
    Jesamine snorted with laughter. "Darling! I have an image to maintain, even here."
    They laughed quietly together. Lewis put an arm around Jesamine, and they snuggled up together. But Lewis had his own private thoughts. He approved of the new Jesamine. It was good to see her grow and blossom. But deep inside, where he thought the dark thoughts he didn't care to consider in the bright light of day, he worried that there might come a day when Jesamine would be so strong, so self-sufficient, that she wouldn't need him anymore. And that if she didn't need him, then she might not want him anymore either. And then the only way to keep her… would be to break her spirit, make her dependent on him again. He knew that for a selfish thought immediately, and pushed it aside. He wanted what was best for her. He did. He'd always known that sometimes loving someone meant having the strength to let them go, when they outgrew you. He hoped that wouldn't happen. But here in the ancient Standing, he couldn't help but remember the oldest saying of his Clan.
    Deathstalker luck. Always bad.
    Jesamine stirred inside his arm, and raised her face to look at him. "We've come a long way in a short time, haven't we? Am I ever going to get my old life back, Lewis? All the comforts and the adulation? Be a star again?"
    Lewis, who had never cared about any of those things, took his time replying. "Do you really miss them so much? Do you regret… throwing in your lot with me?"
    "Only sometimes, darling. And then I look at you, and I remember you're worth far more than anything I gave up."
    Brett sat morosely in his corner, hugging his knees to his chest, watching each of the hall entrances in turn, half convinced that something nasty was going to come charging in at any moment. He didn't like the castle. It reminded him of old stories from his childhood, about wicked noble ladies of old, who lured innocent peasant children into their lairs to make pies out of them. He saw Lewis and Jesamine embracing, and would have liked to have called out something cynical and gratuitously offensive, but he couldn't work up the energy. He was too busy being shit scared. In the past, he'd always known what to do when he felt threatened, by a job or a relationship: he ran. Show the problem his back, and then leave it behind in the dust. Well, he'd run from Finn Durandal, and much good that had done him. Now there was nowhere left to run, and he didn't know what to do. Rose stirred beside him, her bloodred leathers creaking noisily in the quiet, and it was a sign of how seriously spooked Brett was that he actually found some comfort in her company.
    "Why does this place get to you so much?" said Rose. Her voice was calm and completely untroubled.
    "It's just an old building. There's no one here but us."
    "It's the ghosts," said Brett. "This place is full of memories, of people who mattered. Jack Random and Ruby Journey, the uber-esper Jenny Psycho, the blessed Owen and Hazel d'Ark. What they did here still echoes on, haunting the halls and corridors. They were real heroes, Rose. Not like us. We're only pretending. I'm a Random's Bastard, supposedly descended from Jack and Ruby, and somehow I don't think they'd approve of me at all. I agreed to join up with the Deathstalker because I wanted to be the kind of man my ancestors could have approved of. But after all we've been through, I'm still just me. I should have known better. I'm not up to this. I'm not strong enough. I've never been strong enough."
    Rose considered the matter for a while, still carefully polishing her sword. "We all want to be more than we are, Brett. Even me. Ever since our minds were linked by the esper drug, I've been…